Top 3 WordPress Plugins for Social Sharing

Every blogger knows how much of an endeavor it is to create quality content. It may take hours just to research about a certain topic but it’s worth it in order to give the best information possible to your readers. I do this a lot when I’m writing content for my creative baby shower ideas blog.
After you research, you still need to write about the topic and then invest the time to format and edit the post.

Promoting Your Content

After all of this work is done you have to take the second step which is to actively promote your content. Make this task easier by having web 2.0 sharing icons on each and every page of your blog. Having your readers spread the word can be as easy as clicking a button. By adding certain plugins to your blog you can get a lot more exposure and grow in popularity and credibility.

Deciding on the Best Social Plugin for Your Blog

There are many social sharing plugins available to choose from and install on your WordPress blog. That’s one of many the reasons why I personally love WordPress and use it as the content management system for all of my blogs. Usability should always be a huge factor when making decisions about your blog. Even though there are many social sharing plugins out there, I want to highlight the ones I feel are the best ones. Some social plugins have pop out boxes which quite frankly annoy most users. Others are very cluttered which only contributes to confuse visitors. I’ve even seen social icons that cover the actual reading content (which is never a good idea). The following 3 plugins are not cluttered, have great design and are simple to install.

1- Sketch Bookmarks

One of my favorite plugins is the Sketch Bookmarks plugin by Nicholas Cardot. The reason I like it so much is because it has never given me issues with glitches or bugs and the design is very clean. Here’s a screen shot of what it looks like:

It’s easy to install and set up too. You can download it from this link on the WordPress.org site. If you decide to use this plugin, make sure that every time you upgrade WordPress you go back and configure the settings in the backend because it won’t save your settings in an upgrade. This is a simple step that you can take by going under Settings → Sketch Bookmarks. Here’s an image of the backend settings:

I personally don’t use the Twitter share button on it because I use Tweetmeme for that. Also, make sure to configure the settings so that the share buttons don’t appear on the home page if you don’t want to clutter your home page with social links. Sketch bookmarks covers the following Web 2.0 sites: Digg, Facebook, Delicious, Stumbleupon, Twitter and Technoratti. If you’re looking for a plugin that has more options of Web 2.0 sites then you’ll want to check out the next plugin.

2 – Sociable by Joost de Valk

Sociable has a huge amount of options to choose from for social sharing. It gives you a total of 99 social sharing sites and you can configure whichever ones you want to use. If you want to add a site that’s not on their default list the instructions are here. You can download the plugin at this link or at this WordPress.org link.
*If you have a blogger blog or a static html page that you want to add these sharing icons to, you can find versions for those here.

3- Sexy BookMarks

Last but not least is the Sexy Bookmarks WordPress plugin. I really love this plugin because it has a “Web 2.0″ feel to it. The social sites move when you hover over them and it has 88 social site options. If that’s the design that you’re going for on your blog then you will love this plugin. Here’s a screenshot of how it looks.

You can download it from the WordPress plugin directory here and also see all of the documentation to use and install it at this link.
Now all you need to do is pick the best plugin for your specific situation and have fun sharing!

19 Comments so far

Thanks for sharing this excellent information about social sharing on WordPress. You’ve given some excellent suggestions. I’ve been trying a few new sharing plugins recently and I’m always looking for a good one.

I do really like Sexy Bookmarks, but was having problems with it, so I’m currently playing with a new one on my site — see what you think… http://www.dramatic-design.com I’d love your opinion!

Hi Kim – thanks for your comment and sharing the post. I went to your site and really liked the social icons. However I believe the buttons are a bit small. It would look better if you could make them larger. Other than that very cool
All the best,
Eren

I find that the Socialize WP plugin works really well if you want to omit the sharing on certain posts or pages. That’s what I’ve been using since I use WordPress for a website/blog and only wanted bookmarks on my blog posts.

I also use the Sexy Bookmarks plugin. I hope that someday soon I’ll be able to sit in my chair long enough to write more often than I do. I can definitely relate to your first two paragraphs in this post.

Thanks Gary!
I’m sure you will be writing up a storm soon enough. Is there a way for you to write while laying down? Sometimes when my blood pressure goes down I work laying down. I have my computer right next to my bed.
All the best,
Eren

Hello Eren,
I have been playing with a lot of social media plugins lately and I am actually looking for one that I can write a few lines above the buttons to tell people what to do.

I find that unless someone is a blogger or familiar with all of the buttons, they don’t even really know what they are supposed to do.

I have seen some on a few websites where it is templated and says something to the effect of, Did you like this article? Please consider sharing it with your friends by clicking on one of the buttons below.

Any ideas for a plugin that can do that without me having to try and code it? Thanks.

Hi Damon…
I don’t know if there is a WordPress plugin that allows for a lot of customization… However you can create a small bio box and manually insert it into the code: in your index.php file I believe. And then you can insert the individual social buttons in each one. I believe kikolani from kikolani.com did this in her blog and hers is the best example I can think of doing this. I plan on doing something similar to what she did too. I honestly just haven’t had the time to mess in the code.
I don’t recommend customizing someone else’s WordPress share plugin. I’ve been there and done that and when the plugin upgraded all of my customizations flew out the window…So your best bet would be creating an individual bio box.
Hope this helps,
Eren

Thank you Erin. I’ve seen the Social Bookmarks on Nicholas Cardot’s blog. I liked them but didn’t know where they came from or how to get them. Now the penny has dropped. I know what plugin to search for.

For anyone new to the game, this post contains some very good advice. Those wishing to market effectively either already use these or comparable plug-ins or are installing them after finishing this post.

For those working on alternate platforms, just save yourself the time and trouble and switch to WP. It’ll be worth it.

I would also like to ask the author to contact me via the email address included in the comment form regarding advertising/sponsorship.

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